Player Features and Ideas Discussion

How does the loss of a magstab compare with the gains from a switch to an ROF bonus from the damage bonus?

Yes. Actually would it be hard to have the sentry drones move with the ship? It would seem they already have to do a check for distance to ship (or at least upon an attempt to recall them), and the server already does a check for movement as the damn things move at 1m/sec (and too often end up inside a pos shield and unable to be put back in the drone bay ).

As for the active armor bonuses, I don't understand why you guys are so focused on them and on making them a gallente thing. Fine keep trying to make active armor viable as you do nothing to change the disabilities of long cycle, boost at end of the cycle, just plain less boost per cycle, very costly grid requirements considering the need for multiple boosters and possibly multiple cap boosters, and of course always being counterable by neuts unlike the ASB (thus the need to fit and use cap booster with the armor rep).

This game has always wanted/rewarded team play. Active repping is counter to this. And it simply can't match the power of having multiple ships repping a buddy. So why not make the signature Gallente armor tanking bonus an hp per level bonus. This would act like a ship based plate without the horrible mobility penalties that you expect gallente ships to deal with as you simultaneously try to always steer them into the use of the shortest range weapons (combined opt + falloff blasters). Then your new attempts to make active armor viable through the introduction of the AARs could be used on any race of ship.

But thank you for reducing the resist bonuses. Those ships have been flying around with a free, capless and slotless, eanm or invuln. This has been truly the best bonus in the game. Please though don't forget the Drake, Ferox, and Prophecy. BCs and probably even all the amarr and caldari ships that get the resist bonus can easily live with a 1-5% reduction on their resists. They will remain very powerful at every level of eve combat.

Please, PLEASE make this happen!

After looking at the Armageddon and Dominix stats I must voice a certain degree of displeasure.

The problem: They both have pretty much the same damage dealing power.


Allow me to explain...

The Armageddon is overall better and more useful due to its ability to field heavy neutralizers with a range bonus. The 'Geddon also has more fitting options because of its vastly higher powergrid (which, to be fair, comes at the cost of CPU... but that can be more easily worked around).

The Dominix's new drone tracking and optimal bonus will certainly be useful in SOME situations (like station or gate camping) but is still gimmicky as it doesn't really give the ship any real tactical advantage in an actual battleship brawl (sentries and heavy drones don't have a problem tracking slow battleships... and they still won't be able to keep up with anything cruiser sized and/or speedy).


If these changes go through I will have little reason to go for a Dominix. The same functionality can be found in the Armageddon and more.
The same damn thing happened with the Prophecy and Myrmidon. Sure, the new Myrm gained 1 more heavy drone... but the new Prophecy can do exactly what the old Myrmidon could do... only MUCH better. But I digress...

Solutions? Follow the paradigm between the Algos and Dragoon, the Vexor and Arbitrator. The Gallente can field more raw drone power and the Amarr have equal portions drones and utility.

Quoting myself to add something:

The problem is you should have one blasterboat you can balance into exactly that; a good blasterboat.

Trying to have 2 blasterboats basically forces you to gimp both in a way so they are both relevant.

Leaving us with nothing more than 2 gimped blasterboats rather than one good one.

Haven't read any of last ten pages, but anyway...

Don't change the Domi, it's basically fine. Give sentries a 100-200 m/s return-to-bay speed (they're still stationary when firing ofc). Tweak fittings a bit.

Hyperion: 10% active rep bonus, seven turrets with 10% damage bonus, 7-5-7 slots. Probably still not great given the meta, but at least it's flexible, and viable in active armour mode.

Megathron. More mobility, otherwise basically okay?

The original proposed changes are kinda bizarre because they're so extreme. And yet there isn't really anything fundamentally wrong with the existing roles of Gallente BS, it's just that the Hype is a bit rubbish and there's no real fleet BS. I'm a bit worried that there's still no fleet BS in my ideas above, but maybe the Hype's damage output would make it worthwhile (cf Rokh with no damage bonus, and Mael being fine as a fleet boat despite active tank bonus because of alpha, the 10.5 gun-equivalent Hyperion might have enough raw damage output to make it useful, sacrificing tank for DPS relative to Rokh?)

I honestly don't know how you can say this with a straight face.

The dominix becomes a pure drone boat. And one that can field 5 heavies. Yet it's drone bay can fit only 3 flights of heavies, with no room for lights or mediums (to have the flexibility it would need against tacklers for example).

Now maybe 3 full flights of heavies is plenty for a drone based platform, as it does give you a fair amount of flexibility for either spares or flights of different damage types. But a slight increase to be able to have that flexibility on the heavy side coupled with some extra space for lights would be a huge benefit.

GIMMICK? HOW? What is the only thing stopping drone vessels from being very useful in large scale engagements? Optimal range, tracking and the static nature of sentry drones.

They are in fact trying to implement a eve WIDE DOMINIX doctrine. Still! Unless CCP does allow sentries to micro warp back to drone bays but not have base speed. They will not see wide use but the proposed changes can be a precursor.

Personally though. I do believe you can still do the same as the Dominix can with a Armaggedon but with pulse lasers and sentry drones.


- killz

Hi CCP Rise, and thanks for reading through all this.
I think, and, from what I hear, most of my mates in Matari Exodus share the opinion that the Gallente changes are suboptimal. Here's why:

1. The Mega and the Hype in their current state are both able to dual-rep. The Mega can do it because it doesn't need a web, the tracking bonus helps a lot. The Hype can do it because it has 5 med slots. The only reason why an active Hype would ever be better at something than an active Mael is that it can do stuff with its med slots without losing tank. A 4-med Hype means that the Maelstrom will just be superior in every way. The Mega could probably still fit dual reps, but the tank would suffer greatly. I'm not sure if more speed and (probably) an ECCM can make up for that.

2. I also don't like the thought that the Mega will be commonly be used as a shield tank. If you want the hybrid damage bonuses that Gallente ships offer and still shield tank them for even more OMGWTFDPS, it seems only right that you'd have to sacrifice a bonus to do it, which is what you do on the shield Hype now.

3. With the current changes, the Mega gets dangerously close to just being a Tempest. For example, in our RR-BS gangs, we always mixed Tempests and Megas. Some Tempests for extra tackle and utility, some Megas for superior damage output. This distinction would be lost and both ships would be more or less the same.

4. The Domi looks weird, I'm still not sure what to make of it. If the orbit range on combat drones doesn't change, the speed bonus only means they will outtrack themselves even harder. Gardes will shoot about as far as Curators do now, but even Curators will require the use of a drone link augmentor to use all their range. With Wardens, you'd have to fit 3 DLAs and a SeBo. Quite weird. The only situation where I can see the new bonus be useful in solo or small gang PvP is when you have to make Falcons or Scorpions warp off. But this can, at least in many situations, already be done with Curators or Bouncers if you have enough lock range. TBH, I think the bonus will be pretty useless in 80% of the situations one might face as a small gang pilot, and I don't think it is anywhere as useful as a damage bonus to guns.

edit: sry for ninjaediting, stuff is happening too fast in this thread.

Heh, thanks for bringing that up.

I'm certain this is part of CCP's bargining ploy and they'll be bringing out the REAL gallente changes tomorrow... And because these have all been so terrible, we'll be thanking our lucky stars when we've been brought to parity with Amitar.